Teens get hip to exercising caution when online / Many wary about posting too much personal information on social-networking sites

Published 4:00 am, Thursday, April 19, 2007

SOCIALNETWORK12_002_MBK.JPG
Friends Madison Precht, from left, and Dawn Brockmeier, look on as Autumn Smith and Briana Diaz demonstrate how they access their myspace pages from their personal electronic devices at their school, Hillsdale High School, in San Mateo, CA.
Photo taken: 4/18/07
Mike Kane / The Chronicle **Autumn Smith, Briana Diaz, Dawn Brockmeier, Catherine Siemon and Madison Precht MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SF CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT less

SOCIALNETWORK12_002_MBK.JPG
Friends Madison Precht, from left, and Dawn Brockmeier, look on as Autumn Smith and Briana Diaz demonstrate how they access their myspace pages from their personal electronic ... more

Photo: MIKE KANE

Teens get hip to exercising caution when online / Many wary about posting too much personal information on social-networking sites

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When Autumn Smith joined social-networking site MySpace a few years ago, she filled her online profile with all sorts of details: her hometown, the name of her high school, her year in school, her friends, her job, her hobbies, even the car she drives.

But about a year ago, as she began learning more about MySpace and the risk of revealing too much online, she changed her page. She made the site private so that only her approved friends could see it. She used her middle name instead of her first name. She deleted personal details and photos that could make it easy for a stranger to figure out who she was and where she lived. And she encouraged her friends to do the same.

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"When I first got MySpace, I didn't think about it. It was so new that no one really knew about it," said the 17-year-old student at Hillsdale High School in San Mateo. "I used to have everything in it about me. That's something I've changed."

Teenagers are becoming more savvy about how they use MySpace and Facebook, the popular social-networking sites where teens hang out and express themselves. A survey released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that two-thirds of teenagers who use social-networking sites keep their profiles private, and nearly half include false information.

The report comes as social-networking sites are scrutinized, and parents and teachers raise concerns about online safety. In a high-profile case, four families sued MySpace earlier this year after their teenage daughters were assaulted by men they met online.

But the survey of 1,000 people ages 12 to 17 and their parents suggested that, just as social-networking sites have evolved, so have their members. They're getting smarter about what they publish online and what they don't.

"I think teens are getting the message," said Amanda Lenhart, a senior research specialist with Pew and co-author of the report. "A lot of teens have been bombarded by the message that social networks are not safe. This is something teens are living with and swimming with every day and that's reflected in the steps they're taking."

More than half of teenagers who use the Internet post profiles online. Of them, 82 percent use their first name in their profiles. Nearly 80 percent post photos of themselves, 61 percent disclose their hometown and 49 percent give the name of their school.

Still, some teenagers provide more information: 11 percent of teens on social-networking sites publish their first and last names on their profiles and 2 percent have included their cell phone numbers. "The teens you worry about are the ones who do take risks," Lenhart said.

Despite precautions, 32 percent of teens online said they have been contacted by strangers. The report cautioned, however, that in some cases, the strangers could be rock bands, artists or politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, who both have MySpace profiles. But about 7 percent said the encounter left them scared or uncomfortable.

It's not just predators, of course. Dawn Brockmeier, a senior at Hillsdale High, said she has been careful, using only her first name on her MySpace page, because she knows that employers and college recruiters check out candidates online. "You have to make yourself harder to find," she said.

She and other teens reason that their profiles are there just for their friends. "If someone doesn't know me, I don't see the reason for them to be looking at things about me," said Igor Hiller, 18, a college student from Palo Alto who uses Facebook. "My profile is not for people I don't know. It's for people I do know."

Hillsdale senior Madison Precht said she simply does not meet people online if she already doesn't know them. "That's all kind of sketch to me," she said.

Teens are learning in part from each other about how to behave on social-networking sites. The report found that they generally feel comfortable sharing their age, whether they have a boyfriend or girlfriend, favorite movies and music, photos and their pets online. But they said they never share their home address or number, passwords or personal information such as Social Security numbers.

"Young people are very cognizant about what they should share and what they shouldn't share, more than we give them credit for," said Fred Stutzman, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina who is studying social networks. "Students talk to each other and share experiences. They learn what to do from each other."

Parents are learning, too. More than half said they use filtering software on their home computers, and nearly half said they have monitoring software that records what users do online. Nearly two-thirds of parents also said they check up on their children's online activities.

Catherine Siemon, a senior at Hillsdale, said her mother asks to see her MySpace page once a month. She shrugs it off. Her MySpace page today "has a picture and my heroes and that's it."

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